Star Wars: The Old Republic going free-to-play ‘this fall’

If the rash of free weekends for The Old Republic popping up in your Origin client wasn’t enough foreshadowing, EA has just announced plans to make Star Wars: The Old Republic free-to-play to level 50. Of course, players have had the option to play the game’s trial to level 15 since July, but Bioware is taking it one step forward and joining the likes of Turbine, Inc to provide the whole story experience free of charge but make a monthly subscription still appealing.

Beyond story content through level 50, being a free player gets you a whole lot (of annoying things) – no PVP (called “Warzone” in TOR parlance) access, last priority in queues, limited access to raid-like Flashpoints, reduced fast travel capability, and only a subset of the full suite of character creation options. Subscribers get the better half of all these features, in addition to a monthly stipend of the new virtual currency “Cartel Coins” that allow for purchase of in-game items. For a full matrix of what paying either zero dollars or $14.99 a month gets you, check out the full matrix via The Old Republic’s dedicated F2P page.

Bioware is being vague about the timing for the transition, but does go as far as to say it’s coming this fall. If you’re interested, there’s nothing stopping you from downloading the surely enormous client and getting started with the current free trial.

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